Activists occupy legislative floor

SIEGE:While police officers made repeated efforts to evict the demonstrators, members of the public ordered food supplies for them

By Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter

The crowd was excited and sang along when Chen led them to sing his hit song Wandering to Tamsui (流浪到淡水).

A number of foreign residents also joined in, including Vietnamese immigrant Lu Viet Hung.

“I am here to protest that the government is trying to pass the pact without the consent of the Taiwanese,” Lu said. “I would like to call on everyone to urge more friends to come out, as this may be a crisis for Taiwan’s democracy.”

While the protest remained mostly peaceful, one girl cut her wrist and used her blood to draw a heart on the wall in the legislature.

She did not give her name to reporters or explain what she was trying to say, and was quickly taken away to the health center.

At the beginning of the occupation, the police tried to force the activists out of the legislative chamber by closing the toilets and turning off the air-conditioning system, but the toilets were reopened early in the morning, and the air-conditioning was turned back on shortly after 10am, after protesters outside the chamber threatened to break in if Legislative Yuan officials did not restore the air-conditioning.

The occupation of the legislative chamber and the siege outside were continuing as of press time.